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Columbus
Dispatch
Solar-power
developers putting together Plan B
New proposal to address PUCO concern about need
for energy
By Dan Gearino
February
8, 2013
Developers
of what has been called the largest
solar-power project in the Midwest say it will get built, despite a
setback
dealt them last month by utility regulators.
Turning
Point Solar partner David Wilhelm said,
“Reports of our demise are exaggerated. Plan B is coming together."
The
project calls for construction of a
49.9-megawatt plant on a site near Zanesville.
The
plan to save it likely will involve
commitments from utilities, universities and hospitals, in Ohio and
elsewhere,
to buy electricity from Turning Point.
Wilhelm,
of Bexley, and his partner, Evan
Blumer, of Pataskala, discussed the project with The Dispatch.
The
backup plan is more complicated than the
initial one, which involved American Electric Power buying all the
electricity
and paying for it with a mandatory charge on customers’ bills. The
Public
Utilities Commission of Ohio nixed that idea with a 3-1 vote on Jan. 9,
ruling
that AEP had not proved that the project is needed.
Ohio
law allows such mandatory funding only
when there is evidence that the project is needed and could not be
built on the
open market.
Following
the decision, Democrats and
environmental groups called the PUCO’s action a job-killer and a
political
favor to FirstEnergy, a rival Ohio utility that opposed the project.
That led
to pushback from others who said Turning Point was a thinly veiled
promotional
vehicle for former Gov. Ted Strickland, a Democrat.
Wilhelm
and Blumer say Turning Point has the
support of Republicans and Democrats, and any attempts to politicize it
are
counterproductive.
That
said, Wilhelm is a former Democratic National
Committee chairman and was a top campaign official for the 1992
Clinton-Gore
presidential campaign. He has started several venture-capital funds
that help
finance businesses in the Midwest, with much of his work taking place
in
economically challenged parts of Ohio.
“My
last political campaign was 20 years ago,”
he said. “I don’t want this project to be a political football. I want
it to be
considered on its merits…
Read
the rest of the article at the Columbus
Dispatch
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